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Meaningful learning is where the learner actively integrates new knowledge to his or her existing knowledge base. It involves the use of cognitive strategies and self-regulation. What motivates a learner to do so is found to be related to variables like the motivational beliefs, personal goal orientation and affect as well as the perception towards the teacher and his or her classroom context. The study surveyed a group of S6 biology students to examine the correlations between some of the different variables noted above. Students learning of cell division and inheritance is investigated to find out how pedagogy involving hybrid dynamic visualization (integration of dynamic animations to a static diagram) may promote meaningful learning. Two teachers, a subject teacher and a tutor, taught the same topics to the same group. The perception towards these two teachers and their classroom contexts were compared to see how much their perceptions were correlated to the student’s motivational beliefs, personal goal orientation, self-regulated learning behaviour and affect. The findings of the study support previous research that students relate their motivational beliefs and goal orientations to the cognitive strategy used. Besides, female students relate their personal goal orientations, self-regulated learning behavior and emotions to teachers of either gender more than male counterparts. The tutor and her classroom context have been perceived as more mastery goal oriented which aligns with the motivational beliefs and personal goal orientation of the students, whereas the subject teacher is perceived as one with a mixture of both mastery and performance goals and this has no statistical correlation with students’ motivational beliefs, achievement goal orientation or self-regulated learning strategies. The pedagogy seemed to more successfully help students master the concepts of cell division and inheritance and apply them to solve genetics problems compared with traditional teaching. Individual interviews, however, shows that the relevant skills of reasoning are yet to be improved. To conclude, a classroom with a mastery goal orientation through carefully designed pedagogy may promote meaningful learning. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Stoichiometry is an important topic in chemistry. It tells how many reactants are required to produce a certain amount of product in terms of mass, mole and volume. Learning stoichiometric calculation involves the understanding of certain concepts such as the mole, stoichiometric ratios and chemical equations. Some studies attributed the failure in learning stoichiometry to the unfamiliarity with the amount of substance in a mole and students’ weakness in the mathematical ability. Nevertheless how students connect the submicro level and the symbolic level in learning stoichiometry was not discussed widely. In this study, two examples of chemical reactions with different levels of difficulties were used to probe students’ conceptual understanding in stoichiometry at the submicro level. Their strategies used in stoichiometric calculations were examined by an interview study of five Secondary Five students. The connection between the submicro level and the symbolic level in learning stoichiometry would be also probed into. Results indicate that the failure of stoichiometry learning may due to the disconnection in different levels of representation and students’ generated strategy – ‘one portion reasoning’. An implication for teaching and learning is that teachers should use diagrams at the submicro level in the teaching of stoichiometry. Such diagrams should aim to help students building connections across the three levels of representation and enhancing students’ conceptual understanding in stoichiometry. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Cell division is a topic widely recognized by biology teachers for its importance in the curriculum. However, it is also regarded by teachers and students as a very difficult topic. Students at different school levels often hold many misconceptions in cell divisions. While diagrams have been so commonly employed in biology textbooks to enhance the textual representation of cell divisions, the researcher of this study questioned about the cognitive role of the diagrams in helping students construct new concepts of cell divisions, as well as students’ competence in learning from the diagrams. This exploratory study was conducted to investigate how secondary school students made use of textbook diagrams to gain new information about cell divisions, if and how the diagrams induced misconceptions in students, the problems students encountered when interpreting the diagrams and captions, and their perceptions of the usefulness of diagrams in learning cell divisions specifically and biology in general. Twenty-two secondary four students took part in this study. They were provided with a textbook illustration of mitotic and meiotic cell divisions, consisting of schematic diagrams and captions, for self-study. Data was collected from the students’ performance on a task sheet and their responses in individual interview. The task sheet assessed the new concepts (and/or misconceptions) constructed by the students through their (mis-)interpretation of the diagrams and captions in the illustration. The individual interview probed deeper into the students’ cognitive processing of the information in the illustration. Results showed that the students were able to employ different strategies to interpret the diagrams and captions to construct new knowledge to solve problems in the task sheet. However, they also showed weaknesses and problems in interpreting the diagrams. The problems included superficial processing of diagrams, lack of awareness and skills of interpreting diagram conventions, misinterpretation of temporal relationship among different diagrams or different diagram components. As a result, a number of misconceptions on cell divisions were detected among the students. These included misconceptions related to: (1) changes in chromosome number in cell divisions, (2) crossing over occurring at metaphase I of meiosis, and chromosome arrangement at metaphase I. The study also found that students generally perceived diagrams useful for learning cell divisions, but not for learning biology in general. They seemed to have underestimated the functions of textbook diagrams in representing biology concepts and undervalued the roles that diagrams may play in assessment of their understanding of biological concepts. The research findings contribute to the literature on misconceptions of cell divisions by uncovering students’ misinterpretation of specific kinds of diagrams as the origin of their learning difficulties. The findings also contribute to the growing literature on students’ visual perception and the power of diagrams for learning from science textbooks. Recommendations were made for textbook authors to improve design of diagrams illustrating scientific concepts, for teachers to equip students with visual literacy skills to learn from diagrams, and for teacher trainers to provide relevant training to pre-service and in-service teachers. Some suggestions for further research were also discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

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The main goal of the study was to investigate high school advanced placement calculus teachers' subject matter and pedagogical perceptions by examining the following questions: What are the teachers' perceptions of the concept of limit, the role of limits, and the teaching of limits in calculus? Additionally, the sampling technique used shed some light on the question: Are these teachers' perceptions associated with their participation in a calculus reform project focused on staff development? A multi-case study approach involving detailed examination of six teachers (three had participated in a calculus reform project and three had not participated in any calculus reform project) was used. The data collected and analyzed included questionnaires, interviews, observational fieldnotes, videotapes of classroom instruction, journals, and written instructional documents. Upon completion of the data collection and analysis, detailed teacher profiles were created with respect to the questions above. The results of this study were then generated by searching for similarities and differences across the entire sample as well as comparing and contrasting the group of project teachers and the independent teachers. The teachers in this study perceived calculus as a linearly ordered set of topics in which the concept of limit formed the backbone for appreciating and understanding all other calculus topics. The teachers felt the intuitive understanding of limits was essential to further understanding of calculus. Nevertheless, little classtime was devoted to developing an intuitive understanding. Furthermore, little emphasis was given to drawing connections between limits and subsequent calculus topics. The independent teachers devoted considerable time to discussing formal epsilon-delta definition and arguments. The complex relationship between teachers' perceptions and classroom practice appeared to be affected by the significant influence of the teachers' goals of preparing students for the advanced placement exam and college calculus and the authority given to the calculus textbook. Differences between the group of independent teachers and the group of project teachers were found related to the following factors: (a) commitment to the textbook, (b) planning, (c) use of multiple representations, (d) attitude toward graphing technology, (e) classroom atmosphere, (f) examinations, (g) appropriate level of mathematical rigor needed for teaching calculus, and (h) the stability of perceptions. These factors, however, were not fully attributed to participation in the calculus reform project. / Graduation date: 1995

abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy